Horrible Seat Mates

Friday, May 31, 2013

This post is dedicated to the ponytailed Canadian with a man purse on our flight earlier this week. He inspired me to compile this list of my top three oddest seat mates I've had to endure for hours without escape on an airplane. Here we go:

1.The thirty-something, racist, self-proclaimed mercenary. Jason and I were trapped next to this guy for FIFTEEN hours. He casually chatted about how much he enjoyed shooting Arabs (no joke) and offered to show us naked pictures of his barely 18 year old girlfriend. Yikes! He was flying to see naked photo girl in New Zealand. I REALLY hope she's realized what a sleaze he is and dumped him.

2. The undertaker who loved his job. While loudly chomping on carrots, he excitedly told me in excruciating detail all about preparing a car accident victim for an open casket funeral. Props to him for being passionate about his work, but this is not what I want to hear about on a redeye to Boston.

3. The aforementioned Canadian. He was lacking some social boundaries and thought grabbing my arm and shaking me was the appropriate thing to do when I stopped conversing with him and pretended that the in-flight magazine was the most interesting thing I'd ever read. I just didn't want to listen to him gush about his plight in suing the U.S. government and his 100 page love letter to his fiancé. When shaking me didn't work, he spent the rest of the flight asking me for the time every 10 minutes.

Alright, that's my top three. Do I just have bad luck in getting seated next to crazies or do you have some horror stories to share too? I'd love to hear in the comments.

If you think that's bad, I used to occasionally take the Greyhound bus back to Spokane during college. Not only is the station in Seattle the scariest place known man, but I think this is the only mode of transportation for sex offenders. I'm not exaggerating

On our flight back from China, I sat in front of an elderly man who kept gripping the back of my chair as if the plane was about to go down and start moaning. It was quite disturbing! I spent most of the flight leaned forward since I was afraid he'd catch my hair or accidentally smack my face.